Top Kenyan officials indicted for post-electoral violence

The International Criminal Court recently indicted several Kenyan ex-cabinet ministers for their alleged role in planning the widespread violence that followed the country's 2007 presidential election. Significantly, the former officials were present in the Hague courtroom to answer the charges. Another set of hearings is scheduled for later in the month to deal with other suspects, including sitting Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, a former presidential candidate and son of the country's founding president.

10th anniversary of East African embassy bombings

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." -Aristotle

Yesterday, there were commemorations in East Africa to mark the 10th anniversary of the bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

My father was driving me to the bank that morning when US National Public Radio broke the story of the bombings. I remember being worried because I knew a friend of mine and her mother were visiting Kenya at the time. Apparently, they had been in the embassy for some reason left something like half an hour before the attacks. She said they were so close that they heard the explosion from their taxi but had no idea what it was until later on.

This was effectively the first al-Qaeda attack on US interests; though it's important to remember that of the hundreds who died, almost all were Africans. US President Bill Clinton responded by flexing American military muscle and bombing an aspirin factory in Sudan.

Some regional press accounts on the anniversary...

-The East African Standard had some first hand accounts of what happened in Nairobi on that day.


-The Kenyan Nation has a photo essay.

-The Nation also mentions how the present Kenyan government has promised more vigilance in dealing with potential terrorism.

-Tanzania's Daily News has an account of the ceremony in Dar es Salaam.

Toxic waste disaster in Mombasa

In an incident that brought back unfortunate memories of a similar disaster in Abidjan, the BBC has a disturbing report on an apparent toxic waste spill in Mombasa, Kenya's second largest city.

Hundreds of residents claim that they started to become sick after a consignment of leaking chemical containers was dumped nearby.

Others have complained of breathing difficulties, stomach upsets and chest pains, including the BBC journalist who went to the area to report on the story. Two residents said they had miscarriages.

Two people have been arrested and charged in the incident. The World Service's Focus on Africa program reported that they belonged to a Ugandan company.


An editorial in Nairobi's Business Daily urges the country's National Environment Management Authority to be more pro-active in preventing such disasters in the first place. Noting that the area is being subjected to the ongoing dumping of electronic waste such as obsolete computers, televisions, mobile phones, and other used electronic equipment exported from USA and Europe.

Kenya power sharing deal signed

In breaking news, a power sharing deal in Kenya has been signed between President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, the opposition leader.

The BBC reports: Details of the agreement have yet to be released, but correspondents say it appears to be a significant peace deal.

Words matter

Great example of how headlines can be reckless if chosen poorly

Yahoo headline: Opposition leader killed in Kenya
First sentence of AP article: Opposition legislator killed in Kenya.

Especially given the situation there, it's a pretty big difference!

The real reason for Kenya's violence

This op-ed piece in The Christian Science Monitor explains "the real reason for Kenya's violence."

Hint: it's not "tribal."

African bloggers on Kenya

I've covered the Kenyan election controversy a little bit on my blog but others have done a much more extensive job. Sokari over at Black Looks has a list of some good ones.

Aftermath of Kenyan clashes seen from space

How destructive have the clashes in Kenya been? So much so that their aftermath can apparently be seen from space!

Things fall apart

There's one thing that's become eminently clear during the last few days: neither Mwai Kibaki nor Raila Odinga deserved to serve as dogcatcher, let alone president of the Republic of Kenya.

Over 300 people have been killed in post-election violence. And the toll mounts daily.

Odinga and his party accused Kibaki of stealing the election. Kibaki's hasty inauguration to pre-empt legal challenges only gave further credence to the accusations that his 'victory' was a fraud.

Odinga and his followers were little better. Odinga chose to inflame the already volatile situation by comparing the election to the rape of Kenyans. Meanwhile, his supporters did something far worse: they torched a church where dozens of suspected Kibaki supporters had taken shelter. 30 people were killed in the blaze.

The massacre brought back eerie memories of the genocide in Rwanda, where such atrocities were frequent.

The two parties traded charges of genocide.

Certainly, the election should be re-run. As National Public Radio noted:

The head of the country's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, said he had been pressured by both sides to announce the results quickly - and perhaps wrongly. The country's oldest newspaper, The Standard, on Wednesday quoted Kivuitu as saying, "I do not know whether Kibaki won the election."

But that is no excuse for plunging the country toward the abyss.

The ethnic communities have lived in peace with each other for decades. Intermarriages are common. The only time there's ever been any problems have been during elections. They've been betrayed by their misleaders.

Nearly every country that borders Kenya (Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia) has suffered through brutal civil war and/or genocide in the last quarter century. Despite this, Kibaki and Odinga seem willing to risk this in order to get/keep the intoxicating drug called power.

And sadly, far too many Kenyans seem willing to kill and die for these 'men' who have proven they are traitors to the Kenyan nation.

124 dead in Kenya after Kibaki "wins" re-election

Kenyan leader Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of a controversial presidential election... and was sworn in for a second term almost immediately. Kenya's electoral commission claimed that Kibaki beat his main rival Raila Odinga by around 230,000 out of approximately 9.8 million votes cast, or a 2.4 percent margin of victory.

The result was denounced by Odinga's camp following claims of vote rigging. At least one polling station reported 115 percent voter turnout and another saw a candidate run away with ballot papers.

While Kibaki himself declared the election free and free, outside observers weren't so sure. The chief European Union observer said some doubts remained about the credibility of the election.

More disturbingly, at least 124 people have already died in clashes related to the election controversy.

The US ambassador to Kenya told CNN television called on Kenyans to refrain from violence. He pointed out that the country was governed by the rule of law and that people should take up their election protests via legal means.

However, this was undermined by the fact that Kibaki was hurriedly sworn in for his second term only an hour after the electoral commission announced the results. The ceremony was reportedly held in private and only in the presence a handful of western reporters and only a single Kenyan journalist.

If Kenya's governed by the rule of law, then the rule of law needs time to actually be applied. The fact that Kibaki was sworn in so hastily will surely be seen as an attempt to circumvent the rule of law and any potential legal challenges to his 'victory.' No court is going to overturn the victory of a president who's already been sworn in.

The decision to inaugurate Kibaki with record speed could have dangerous consequences, especially in a country where over a hundred people are already dead in election violence.

The hasty swearing in has only served to increase suspicion that the election was fixed. If Kibaki won fair and square, then surely he had nothing to fear from legal challenges.

Kibaki will surely call for peace and reconciliation but already aggrieved opponents will feel even more bitter that he prevented the legal process from running its course. In denying them legal avenues of protest, Kibaki's decision risks stirring more violence in his divided country.

I don't know if Mwai Kibaki and his party stole the election, but he's certainly acting like it.

Anti-HIV efforts in Africa: two approaches that work

The Washington Post has a good article on the 'Best-Kept Secret' for reducing HIV in Africa: birth control.

President Bush banned funded to groups that provided or 'promoted' abortion shortly after he took office in 2001. But the article noted that the effects went well-beyond those organizations.

Two of the largest distributors of contraception [in Kenya], Family Health Options Kenya and Marie Stopes Kenya, did not provide abortions, which are illegal in Kenya, but were subsidiaries of London-based parent organizations whose members helped provide them in other countries. Together, the two groups closed five family planning clinics after losing U.S. funding.

In 2003, Bush created something called The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), as a way to circumvent UNAIDS, an organization which it could not sufficiently manipulate. Even if PEPFAR weren't working cross-purposes with internationally coordinated AIDS relief, it hardly makes up for the assault on family planning funding.

An ounce of prevention is a lot cheaper than a pound of cure.

The paper also has a piece on Madagascar's efforts to fight HIV-AIDS. A fight which is apparently working, since the island has the lowest infection rate on the continent. But with Madagascar's economy opening to foreign workers, a situation which often leads to a rise in HIV rates, the importance of continuing these efforts can not be understated.

Glue sniffing street children in Nairobi

The excellent One World site has a report on the problem of children sniffing glue in Kenya's capital.

The Advocacy Project reports the shocking statistic that an estimated 60,000 children live on the streets of Nairobi, and almost all are addicted to some sort of inhalant.

The Project adds that Part of the problem is that the laws on inhalants are enforced less strictly than those regulating other drugs, such as marijuana. Anyone who sells an inhalant to a minor, knowing that it will be abused, is subject to three years in prison. But there has not been a single recorded arrest.

A Fellow for The Advocacy Project is keeping a blog of his work in this area.

Kenyan president vetoes anti-media bill

You don't see presidents in Africa vetoing bills that often. Usually, heads of state arrange it so they have supplicant majorities in the national legislatures to do their bidding. So kudos to Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki for vetoing a controversial media bill that most analysts considered to be draconian.

Kibaki came under heavy criticism last year when the government launched an armed raid on an independent media organization, notes VOA.

It added that previously, his wife Lucy Kibaki stormed into a newspaper office and harassed journalists on the eve of the World Press Freedom Day.

Proponents of the bill argued that the Kenyan media are abusing its newfound freedom, but opponents contended that the media needed to be free to sort these things out themselves.

Update: In a rather surprising move, at least from the outside, Kibaki's re-election bid has been endorsed by his predecessor Daniel arap Moi. One wonders if this poisoned chalice isn't a cloak-and-dagger attempt to undermine Kibaki's campaign.